Valmy in SPAAAAAAAAACE (Mass Effect Series AAR)

[Valmy]

Ok so two years ago I innocently thought how much fun it would be to play and enjoy the pulpy goodness (and not so goodness) of the Dragon Age series. Like a freaking year later I finally finished because I had no idea what I was getting myself into with Dragon Age Inquistion. Go back and look at it, I went through the first two games in like two months and the rest was all DAI. So yeah I cannot wait for the next game so I can spend another 8 months doing that.

Anyway, so I have recovered fully and started thinking about what I wanted to do next. I started a TW:Warhammer one but..eh...I don't know. Just pics of maps and battles with assurances I won (or not) just was not that compelling to write.

I just think these cinematic Bioware Games just work better for my format. They are visual so they have interesting screenshots and they have ridiculous pulpy plots and characters that are fun to enjoy and sometimes make fun of.

So, in celebration of Bioware releasing their first Mass Effect game since everybody who originally made Mass Effect has quit I am going to give Mass Effect the Dragon Age treatment.

Next year in celebration of Obsidian releasing Deadfire I will try to give Pillars of Eternity a shot but I don't know...look at this really cool textbox? Check out this amazing tactical set up? Might not work.

We'll see. But for now I am going to go through each Mass Effect game and its DLC. Even Pinnacle Station. Man fuck Pinnacle Station. But you can look forward to enjoying my pain. Hopefully by the time we finally get to Andromeda it will be getting close to being feature complete. I plan on taking it slow.

Mass Effect came out at a really crazy time in my life and it was probably the first Bioware game I did not buy the second it came out. Also I had bought a X-Box to play KOTOR and Jade Empire thinking that hey maybe I might try the console thing and..well...those were pretty much the only games I ever played on the damn thing. Well those and KOTOR 2. So like hell I was going to buy a XBOX 360 so I did not and waited until 2008 to play it. So yeah Bioware YOU are responsible for me no longer buying your games on release.

[Valmy]

Mass Effect Part One or Priceless Prothean Beacon 1 Blundering Stupid Humans 0

So it begins:



'Yeah this game was obviously designed for Consoles. HIT SELECT'

Some people talk like Mass Effect was some kind of amazing mind blowing step forward. I don't know. I mean it is great but as a game it seemed like KOTOR to me combined with the third person shooter which was the dominant game type of the day. But I think it was the way it was put together? And the sense that they made a star wars game and were like 'no THIS is how you do a space opera!'
The opening scene where they make the first jump through a Mass Effect Relay for the first time is pretty epic. A sign of future set pieces of awesome like that to come.

Ok so the very first time I played this game I created my character and went through the game but then I realized that I was really playing this Shepard guy, not the character I created. So from then on it has kind of been default Shep for me. I mean not that I have played the Mass Effect games much. I won ME twice and ME2 once without the DLC. But anyway I shall be continuing this here.



'All great men are named John. Like me...and...John Glenn. John Adams. That Bible guy.'

I have always been a soldier (well not me, I mean I always played soldier Shepards) but I like the idea of a high tech military man OF THE FUTURE so I thought I would try to the soldier/engineer hybrid. Which will be a bit of a change to just getting my assault rifle as advanced as possible and just shooting shit until it dies.



'I bet people who play this game in the year 2148 will be so bummed by how less space opera-y the world actually is. Oh and they call it  Mass Effect in case you couldn't put two and two together there.'

So for anybody who doesn't know humanity's second greatest war hero Commander John Shepard of the Alliance Navy has been made executive officer to humanity's greatest war hero Captain David Anderson. If you want to know why he is a big deal well the guy who wrote this game wrote a book about him. It's....ok. They are testing the SR-1 Normandy the newest and fanciest ship in the Alliance Navy. Since the Citadel Council, and the Turian military, invested heavily in this project they sent one of their ninja-assassins Nihlus to look it over.



'No not that guy.'



'Right that guy, although a world eating force of death and destruction would have been cool. But if you are into that sort of thing just wait a few seconds.'

And here we meet all the crew. The pilot Lt. Jeff 'Joker' Moreau, the biotic Marine Lt. Kaiden Alenko, Engineer Lt. Greg Adams, Navigator Charles Pressly (who was on the ship that saved Shepard in the 'War Hero' background), Doctor Mj. Karin Chakwas. Yep lots of officers with distinguished and long service records. Well and one enlisted man. Corporal Richard Leeroy Jenkins, he who references an internet culture phenomenon already stale in 2007. Man when everybody is an officer you know the one enlisted guy is going to get it.



'Such a very long career. I mean this guy is the star of Mass Effect 3 right? It is a buddy cop game with he and Nihlus.'

Anyway the whole testing the Normandy turns out to be a cover story and...well do I really need to go into this? You guys know this stuff right? The Protheans were super advanced but mysteriously vanished 50,000 years ago and anytime their tech is found everybody freaks out. So an intact Prothean Beacon is found on this isolated Human Colony and Nihlus is along to get it for the Council and see if Shepard is also worthy to be one of the Council's ninja-assassins as well. And yeah if you didn't understand any of that I recommend you play Mass Effect, it is pretty good.

But the bad guys got there first.



'Oh man that is scary. Fortunately this is the last we will see of that thing. Right?'

So we all head out to get the Beacon on Eden Prime. I had this moment of panic where I was like 'oh shit I have no idea how to play this game anymore' but the game actually does a pretty good job because it all came back to me pretty fast. Also I have a fresh copy on Origin so the difficulty maxes out at 'Veteran' while I always played on 'Insanity' before so it was much easier than I remembered. I even remembered to go find the hiding farmers to learn about how the Dock Worker is a smuggler.

Meanwhile Jenkins gets his:



'Stupid cutscene death!'

And meet Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 212:



'Are those boob plates regulation soldier?'

Whose voice actress loves to really let it out when Ashley gets pissed.



'Basically don't piss Ashley off...or actually do it is kind of awesome.'

And of course we have prophetic guy who knows exactly what is going on but everybody thinks he is insane.



'Man will I ever know how you feel a little later on.'

Another Council Spectre...er....Ninja-assassin named Saren (also in that book that was ok) is leading the Geth attack and he kills Nihlus (in a particularly EEEVIIIL way) and uses the beacon somehow. Then he leaves and tells the Geth to blow up the colony. Somehow four little bombs will do this so I guess they were nukes or something.

So after defeating the Geth and their freaky Dragon's Teeth and Husks they make it to the beacon. Saren probably should have just taken it with him right? I mean if he had there would have been no way for anybody to stop him. Just saying. I guess he just figured he could just leave and everything would go according to plan. He was taking lessons from Doctor Evil.

Anyway so having secured the beacon stupid human number one, Ashley, accidentally activates the beacon. Stupid human number two, the heroic Commander Shepard, saves her just to be caught by it himself.



'Yeah well Ash this is kind of your fault. SO YOU ARE BAD AND SHOULD FEEL BAD.'

The Prothean beacon then blows up, throwing Shepard to the ground in a coma of some sort. This just shows why stupid humans should be kept away from priceless Prothean Ruins. More on this later.

Then we get a cutscene, a rare one where Shepard is not present, where Star Trek's Martina Sirtis (playing Asari Matriarch Benezia) informs Saren his plans fell apart at the end. He takes it well.



'The award for best bad guy hissy fit goes to...Kylo Ren. But this is up there.'

Commander Shepard wakes up on the Normandy with a slight headache and the memory of a vision of DOOM in his head. He nobly excuses Ashley for her colossal fuckup. She gives a look like 'this guy seems like a man of honor and integrity...hey I like to have sex with people like that.'

Anyway so now they have to go see the galactic council on the Citadel to explain how they got Nihlus killed, the Beacon Destroyed, and they are at war with the Geth. Shows what happens when the blundering stupid humans are in charge.

[jimmy olsen]

Lol.😅

Great AAR

[Syt]

If playing on PC, get the HD texture mod.

http://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect/mods/1/?

[Pedrito]

I was thinking about stating ME, too, because I own the first two games but never played them: HD texture aside, are there other necessary cosmetic mods? I want to play the vanilla experience.

L.

[Syt]

I was thinking about stating ME, too, because I own the first two games but never played them: HD texture aside, are there other necessary cosmetic mods? I want to play the vanilla experience.

L.

I think the texture mod has all you need for a good vanilla experience.

[Valmy]

If playing on PC, get the HD texture mod.

http://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect/mods/1/?

Thanks but I play on Origin and I almost certain it hates Mods because EA and stuff. I don't know. I hate having to reinstall stuff. Do you think it will piss Origin off if I do that?

[Valmy]

Lol.😅

Great AAR

Tainted! Just kidding. Thanks Tim!

[Valmy]

Mass Effect Part 2 or The Talky Part

Ah the Citadel where you get to go around talking to the Aliens and getting the lore dumps. It also has another really cool cut scene where you see the Citadel and the Destiny Ascension (the flagship for the entire galactic fleet) for the first time.

When Bioware made the first Baldur's Gate the titular city was a huge sprawling series of urban maps where, on many of them, not much related to anything was going on. It was just there so you could poke around. Athkatla in Baldur's Gate 2 was still pretty sprawling but it was much more focused. There were actually important things in each map to do. By KOTOR and Mass Effect the cities are SUPER focused. Like each and every inch of the Citadel is important. There is not a room that does not directly relate to a quest...er...'assignment' or the main plot. It was super streamlined. The streamlining was actually kind of annoying to those of us who really like the original Baldur's Gate. But then Bioware just forgot about all that streamlining business and just had me wandering around the desert for hours on end in DAI so I guess I am ok with the streamlining now.

But anyway in The Citadel you get to meet most of the species of the galaxy and maybe learn stuff about them if you enjoy long conversations and reading/listening to Codex entries. For the first time you meet the Salarians, Hanar, Volus (the buttmonkies of the galaxy who nobody respects), the Elcor, The Asari, The Keepers, The Krogan, and the Quarians. The Turians and the Geth you have already met and the Batarians and the Rachni you will get to know later.



'We get no respect. No respect at all. We told the Turians everybody hates us and they said that was ridiculous, everybody hasn't met us yet.'

And also you get to meet some of the most beloved characters in the Mass Effect er...what was until recently a trilogy. Of course I am talking about Ambassador Udina.



'This is an outrage. AN OUTRAGE!!11'

I love this guy. He is always pissed off no matter how trivial the situation.

'I got you your breakfast ambassador.'

'This breakfast is a disaster Shepard! Do you realize how many political problems this subpar breakfast is causing?'

His very first line in the game is 'this is an outrage!' and for some reason I just found that funny. For the next few years 'this is an outrage!' would be my response to virtually any setback.

Anyway they are launching a full-scale investigation into Saren which is tough for us since we only have numerous eye-witnesses putting him there. But they are all puny humans so hardly impressive to the mighty rulers of the galaxy.



'Humans are so disgusting and stupid and squishy.'

I wish Morbo from Futurama was on the Citadel Council. 'All Humans are vermin in the eyes of Morbo!' but the Turian councilor will have to do.

So the plot for this part of the game is set: find evidence to prove Saren is a traitor. And man you find it surprisingly fast. The citadel cops, C-Sec, must really suck. Though I guess Garrus Vakarian, super space vigilante, had already done most of the work.



'Your're out of control cowboy cop Garrus! Here we do things by the book. Turn in your badge! '
*blam*

By my book chief.'

Ok that didn't happen but it should have. So the next part of the quest is to track Garrus down. You can either talk to a (snicker) Volus or talk to a crooked cop in Cora's Den. But the game really wants you to go to Cora's Den since three other quests also point you there.

There are a bunch of side quests here but not as much as I remembered. Again it is very compact and everything is important. There is the Asari Consort, who sends you to Cora's Den to talk to a lovesick Turian General (this also ties into something related to the Elcor ambassador). The out of control cop who uses a waitresses sister as an undercover asset in Cora's Den. The husband of one of Ashley's squad mates trying to recover his wife's body from uncaring Alliance bureaucracy. Two separate Volus-Salarian pairs who are locking horns, one of these include the notorious 'scan the Keepers' que...er...assignment (the Keepers are the mysterious species of bug people who maintain the Citadel for mysterious reasons...yes this is important). A Hanar trying to preach on the godliness of the Protheans in the ritzy part of the Citadel. A reporter wanting you to infiltrate...Chora's Den. A rogue AI trying to steal credits to have it transferred of the Citadel. And that is about it. Oh and Conrad Verner Shepard's superfan.

So eventually you work your way to Chora's Den and Saren's goons are waiting for you. It was no big thing though.

Inside of the best darn strip club on the Citadel the plot shows up.

You meet Wrex for the first time telling everybody he is going to kill Fist, the crime boss who runs this place. Note he does this repeatedly. I guess if you send a Krogan to kill somebody he just walks around announcing you are going to kill that person until that somehow works. Then you meet that crooked cop who fills you in on Garrus but only after he tries to SHOCK you by telling you how Captain Anderson screwed up becoming a Spectre. But of course since I read that ok book I already knew that. Anyway after he gloats about how STUPID you are for not sitting around drinking in strip clubs your whole life he finally comes clean with the goods.



'Wait so you know exactly where he is this very second?'

That is one helpful drunk.

Then you deal with the Turian General and the undercover girl. Since I max out Shepard's charm these side assignments are kind of like this:

Person: 'I have this big irreconcilable problem.'

Shepard: 'No you don't.'

Person: 'You're right. I will do what you want me to do.'

It is very handy. I can kind of see why they did away with that skill in the second game. But to be fair you do sacrifice a lot of combat and powers abilities to do that.

So they head off to the Dr. Michel's office and arrive with impeccable timing, just as Garrus is involved with some kind of hostage situation. Not that that bothers Garrus much who shoots the thug right as he is holding a gun to the doctor's head. Man that could have gone poorly. Everybody cools down pretty fast and the good doctor tells them that they were Fist's men trying to stop her from telling Garrus about some Quarian. Some Quarian I am sure we will never meet. Oh and Garrus tells us Fist is working for Saren now, which is why the Shadow Broker, who he used to work for, hired Wrex to kill him. So now they go find Wrex who is still running around the Citadel telling everybody who is going to kill.



'I get the feeling Wrex is the discount assassin.'

Anyway since we are all going after the same guy Wrex agrees to come along. They go back down to Chora's Den and this time the whole place is closed and ready to fight Wrex because they somehow knew he was coming. Not sure which of the 200 people Wrex told tipped him off. After fighting through his thugs they get to his office and knock out his defenses. Then a rather bizarre exchange occurs where he claims he does not know where the Quarian is...and then later admits he set her up to be killed by Saren...and he does know where she is...and all this is about to go down in a few minutes. Holy shit Shepard better be glad he didn't sleep in this morning.

Then Wrex kills him because...well...duh. If he ever got paid by the Shadow Broker he held out on us. Bastard. Also even though he told C-Sec he was going to do it, and then did it, they never even bring him in to be questioned. Krogans are scary dudes. Or they knew he was working with Shepard. Anyway I quickly remember to grab Fist's data disk and loot his office because if you do not do that you never get another chance. It is rather hard to remember to do that with the big countdown clock to Quarian assassination ticking down at the bottom of the screen.

Anyway they fight back out of the strip club and then race to the alleyway and, naturally, get there just in time to witness Saren's turian sexually harrasing the Quarian.



'Ewwwwww. Interspecies fondling.'

After a short fight it is all done. The Quarian is, of course, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya and she was able to salvage a very specific recording from a dead geth's memory core.



'The conduit eh? Sounds appropriately Sci Fi-y.'



'I know that voice! Counselor Dianna Tr...er...Matriarch Benezia!!11'

Ah yes the "Reapers".

Man how lucky are we? Speaking of the Conduit I really liked how Kaidan sensed that the Mass Effect Relay statue might be something more when exploring the Presidium. That was some George RR Martin type foreshadowing there.

Oh and the memory core also says who the Reapers were and what they did.



'Oh we find all this out this early in the series? Huh.'

I find it pretty funny that not only does the entire plot drop in the first few hours of game one but Shepard immediately believes it and almost nobody else does. The default name for Femshep should be Cassandra.

Anyway even the Council cannot ignore evidence like this. So naturally Udina gets pissed off and demands they nuke every geth from Orbit between here and the Perseus Veil. They decide not to do this. THIS IS AN OUTRAGE.

And of course the Council just think the Reapers are a geth myth. Because computer AIs have myths I guess.

But fortunately the Citadel Council has a foolproof plan to save the galaxy from Saren: by making you do it.



'So how many millions of credits in resources do I have to draw from for my mission? Zero? Huh.'

They cut the fat of government expenditure with impressive precision. So it is off to stop Saren and the Geth. Alone.

On the way out Admiral Kahoku asks them to look for his missing marines. They are actually going to find them really soon. Also the very same Marines who went missing found the body of somebody named Armistan Banes, some kind of crooked Alliance researcher who was blackmailing Doctor Michel. More on that later.

Another guy wants them to search for a freighter that went missing. Shepard also got An obvious set up from a crime boss named Helena Blake who wants him to take out some notorious rivals...er...slave traders. So yeah I guess everybody heard Shepard is headed out to the Traverse with incredible speed.

Now everything is pretty much done but...damn it...I still have one Keeper to find in the scanning mission. I searched everywhere and it was driving me crazy until I was this close to deciding just to forget it and leave and went to Normandy and of course the last Keeper was standing there. So NOW I finished all the assignments and met with Udina and Anderson and they informed him Anderson was retiring for paper pushing and Shepard was now the commander of the Normandy. And they told him to check out Noveria and Feros for Geth activity...oh and one other thing. Benezia's daughter is investigating some Prothean ruins in the Artemis Tau Cluster.



'So tune in NEXT WEEK! Or at least in a couple days.'

So that is that. Enough of all this talking and lore dumps and let's get out there in space and shoot people.



'Yeah! You said it Commander! Somebody get me an Assault Rifle!'

Man I love this game. It is not quit the tingly nostalgic joy I got playing DAO again but it is pretty great.

So tune in soon to see how the blundering stupid humans destroy another priceless Prothean ruin and nearly get eaten by a giant space worm.

[viper37]

If playing on PC, get the HD texture mod.

http://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect/mods/1/?

Thanks but I play on Origin and I almost certain it hates Mods because EA and stuff. I don't know. I hate having to reinstall stuff. Do you think it will piss Origin off if I do that?

It worked for ME2 and ME3 without a hitch, so I'm guessing the same applies to ME1

[Valmy]

It did? Ok I will try it out.

[viper37]

It did? Ok I will try it out.

just follow the instructions.  You need the large adress (LAA) thing to use more memory, otherwise, it will crash.

[viper37]

Because computer AIs have myths I guess.

Ghost in the machine

[Malicious Intent]

Nice to see you doing another Bioware AAR. I greatly enjoyed your DA one. 

[Valmy]

Mass Effect Part Three or Priceless Prothean Ruin 1 Blundering Stupid Humans 0

Star Treking across the universe!

So...time for some more talking.

So they meet the crew. The ever-jolly brittle bones guy:



'Wait until you see my dancing!'

Shepard tries to make Ashley feel less incompetent for letting herself be ambushed the Geth.



'Well...ok you got me there.'

This is one of my favorite take downs of Paragon Shepard.

'Don't worry Ashley, you are a great soldier. The Geth are incredibly tough to detect, there was nothing you could have done. I BELIEVE IN YOU!!11'

'Sir, they have flashlight heads.'

'Uhhh...right well....um...'

Alenko is more successful making Shepard feel better about his own blundering:



'Maybe not destroying the Beacon. Maybe.'

Wrex regales the Commander with a war story.



'Ah Wrex I could listen to your whimsical tales for hours.'

Tali is delightful as she lore dumps on the intricate political systems of her people.



'You must be awesome at parties.'

Garrus is annoyed that he cannot just shoot dead anybody who he thinks committed a crime.



'Somehow I think this character was less horrifying back in the political climate of 2007.'

So there a little bit of color on our delightful cast. I like to check up on them after every major story piece.

And ok so I lied about being done with the talking. TIME FOR SOME ACTION. SOME HOT MAKO ACTION.

I always end up in the same system first every time I play this game. They find the alliance distress signal and they go down to the planet and then SURPRISE it is a Thresher Maw. After driving around in a panic they manage to take the damn thing down, once I remember the Mako has a cannon and not just machine guns. There, just barely avoiding being worm food, they find Admiral Kahoku's marines.



'So the very men who found Banes were drawn to this isolated thresher maw infested planet. Coincidence? I think not. Though you have to admit this is a rather unnecessarily elaborate scheme.'

Only one organization would spend so much money on an elaborate dastardly deed. But since we have not yet met said organization in the game I won't spoil it. But they start with a 'C' and end with 'erberus'.



'I mean really? This is the first planet and I almost have my electronic skill maxed out!'

Bastards. Come on Bioware let me get a couple levels. I mean why do you have to have max decryption and max electronics from pretty much the beginning? It is so arbitrary the other skills do not demand this.

So we have to come back later. Groan.

The next system contains the planet Liara is on. So they land in the Mako and the fun begins.



'Yeah super strange. Like Geth or something.'

It is kind of weird they Geth send so many ships and units just to take out one Asari. How did they know how essential she would end up being to Shepard? I guess for some reason she was vital to Saren as well since he clearly wanted her taken alive...though he ends up not needing her. Who knows?

So they roll along blowing the hell out of all the Geth with their big cannon, the main enemy being the thing's bizarre handling. After a short while they reach the Prothean Ruin.



'Muahahaha! Prepare to die foolish human....wait is that a Mako cannon? *BLAM*'

So they descend into the ruin and after a few Geth they find the blue damsel in distress...by a blue force field coincidentally.



'So our Prothean Expert got trapped by a Prothean device. Clearly her expertise is essential.'

So the Geth are there, led by a Krogan, and are trying to break into the barrier but cannot figure out how. I mean how stupid are they? There is this big mining laser right here and they are clearly too stupid to use it.



'Humans are so smart. Not stupid like Geth.'

So they rush up to Liara and Shepard somehow knows how to use the 50,000 year old still functioning control panel to break her out. I guess Prothean Tech is so common in places like the Citadel that everybody just knows how their stuff works? And then immediately the whole ruin begins to collapse because using the mining laser was in fact really stupid but I guess that is par for the course with them and Prothean things. We operate with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

As they try to escape the Krogan shows up with the Geth and is excited to kill them all. But man I hate this fight. It should be impossible to win this early in the game, if the Krogan charged with his shotgun he could easily take Ashley, Kaidan, and Shepard out in like 10 seconds. So instead the AI just has the Krogan just park himself and do nothing until the Geth are all dead until he charges. And yes he can still kill you pretty easily even then. So if you do not kill the Geth you can pretty much just kill the Krogan while he mostly just stands there.



'Actually it is pretty lame.'

And the best part is if you fuck it up you have to sit through two cut scenes and an elevator ride before you can try again. If the players cannot yet handle a Krogan Battlemaster why not use something else here? Ah well I guess if you wait until later in the game the Krogan is no big deal but I have a feeling the AI acts the same.

In any case they all rush out into the Normandy while a volcano erupts destroying the ruin. Amazing it hadn't done that during the previous 50,000 years.



'Yeah well on the number of crazy situations the Normandy will participate in this might be top 10.'

Liara is eager to tell us all of her fascinating theories on the disappearance of the Protheans.



'Yeah so your 50 year career investigating this topic is now useless.'

She then admits she does not really know how she can help but agrees to come along anyway. The party is complete! She does have this wacky theory that there were previous empires that rose before the Protheans and mysteriously vanished but that is....absolutely 100% correct.

Another of my favorite Ashley moments occurs here when Liara is all drooling over Commander Shepard 'Oh Commander Shepard you are all so big and strong and so amazing I am fighting to hold back the squee escaping my little blue mouth' and Ashley is all 'ok can you shut the fuck up?'

It is time for Shepard to talk to the Citadel Council. They sure are impressed.



'Well to be fair you already knew my tendency to do this sort of thing before you made me a Spectre.'

This is by far the shortest and least interesting major level of the game so I like to get it over with first, plus you get Liara who is a pretty nice Biotic to have around. I hear if you wait until the very last possible second to do this level Liara is starting to go insane from being in that trap for so long.

I will be talking a lot more about the planetary exploration thing in the next section, where that is mostly what I do, but I really dislike how they make you use the Mako so much in the story missions and not just because of its bouncy castle physics. In Mass Effect you are supposed to be running around engaging in intense fire fights. The Mako can just blow away most opposition without too much trouble. This is especially true here where you are in the Mako for most of the mission. But more on that later.

Next: I do all the quests and DLC I can before finally moving on Noveria.